What Films Have You Seen Recently?

[Demoncrat]

Teacher is a hoot. Ken surpasses himself. But then I'm a fan

Poor White Trash

William Devane and Jamie Pressly and Sean Young and Jason London???
Scum try and dig their way outta their predicament. Grotty to look at (v dark print etc), this rather silly 'caper' flick amused for its duration.

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Barbarian Queen (1995)

Boring is not a word that can be used to describe Barbarian Queen. Clunky, cheap and devoid of acting talent it may be but boring it is not.

Lana Clarkson gives her all and handles the numerous fight scenes as gamely as she does being tied naked to a rack and tortured. As for the rest of the cast? Well memorable isn't a word that springs to mind but they all look great in their loincloths (the guys) and animal skin bikinis (the gals).

Plots may come and go but big breasted warrior women kicking ass are all that's worth recommending here. But damn! What a recommendation.

[Mojo]

SECRET RITES / LEGEND OF THE WITCHES

In SECRET RITES, Alex Sanders tells us that the perceived notion of witches gatherings involving people running around in the nude is nonsense, then proceeds to show us a ‘true’ ritual, which involves people running around in the nude.
It’s a very colourful drama / documentary, in which a young woman is initiated into the cove, after answering a few questions in the local pub. It is quite entertaining though and is a real curio from the early 70s.
LEGEND OF THE WITCHES is a straightforward documentary style tale, involving witches rites, ghosts and other elements of the supernatural. I saw this one yonks ago in a pretty crappy version, but this edition is in crystal sharp black and white. There are also some fascinating time capsule short films on here too, rounding off another wonderful BFI Flipside release.

FRIGHT

Susan George stars as a babysitter in peril, in this early 70s thriller.
Watching this one again after all these years ( on this fabulous looking Blu Ray ) my gripes are the same. Namely Susan’s character seems to be in total panic at nothing as soon as she’s left alone, including a creaking door ( which she herself is closing! ), a dripping tap ( yikes! ) and running into some clothes on a line which she somehow doesn’t see. It’s almost like a parody at times.
However, it really kicks into gear with the arrival of the escaped lunatic, in a terrific performance from Ian Bannen, resulting in an excellent extended finale.
There are some nice interviews on here too, including the delightful Ms George, who mentions that her role here was pretty much a warm up for her gruelling performance in the following year’s STRAW DOGS.

[MrBarlow]

Scum 1979.

The story of the young juvenile offender institution in the 70s.

Alan Clarke's vision on the borstal system in Britain was made for TV and banned in 1977, then made into a feature film with some scenes different but still powerful to watch.

Ray Winstone stars as new inmate Carlin who rises up to be "The Daddy". Mick Ford as Archer who intends to do his time causing much problems for the wardens with his religious and outspoken ways.

The film is still a bit tough to watch with the attempt suicides and the garden green house scene, but from start to finish there is violence between the inmates and the officers who start it or turn a blind eye and plenty racial slurs, especially with the gym hall scene that nobody listening to the instructor.

Everyone done an amazing performance either as a inmate or officer, they managed to keep the pace going although some people needed a good punch. It is engrossing to watch and one film you won't forget with a searing view of emotional intentsity.

[gag]

Originally Posted by MrBarlow

Scum 1979.

The story of the young juvenile offender institution in the 70s.

Alan Clarke's vision on the borstal system in Britain was made for TV and banned in 1977, then made into a feature film with some scenes different but still powerful to watch.

Ray Winstone stars as new inmate Carlin who rises up to be "The Daddy". Mick Ford as Archer who intends to do his time causing much problems for the wardens with his religious and outspoken ways.

The film is still a bit tough to watch with the attempt suicides and the garden green house scene, but from start to finish there is violence between the inmates and the officers who start it or turn a blind eye and plenty racial slurs, especially with the gym hall scene that nobody listening to the instructor.

Everyone done an amazing performance either as a inmate or officer, they managed to keep the pace going although some people needed a good punch. It is engrossing to watch and one film you won't forget with a searing view of emotional intentsity.

Amongst one my all time fave films with the Warriors, and films like these 2 still stand test of time, and still pack a better puch than most films of today, proves they dont make films like they did.

[MrBarlow]

Originally Posted by gag

Amongst one my all time fave films with the Warriors, and films like these 2 still stand test of time, and still pack a better puch than most films of today, proves they dont make films like they did.

The Warriors is a film I haven't watched in a while, time to dig that out for when I'm off Sunday/Monday.

[Demoncrat]

Originally Posted by Demdike@Cult Labs

Barbarian Queen (1995)

Boring is not a word that can be used to describe Barbarian Queen. Clunky, cheap and devoid of acting talent it may be but boring it is not.

Lana Clarkson gives her all and handles the numerous fight scenes as gamely as she does being tied naked to a rack and tortured. As for the rest of the cast? Well memorable isn't a word that springs to mind but they all look great in their loincloths (the guys) and animal skin bikinis (the gals).

Plots may come and go but big breasted warrior women kicking ass are all that's worth recommending here. But damn! What a recommendation.

How true. Very Recommended. Entertainment over here y'all

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Re-Animator 1985

A combination of producer Brian Yuzna, director Stuart Gordon and unknown star Jeffrey Combs, effectively came along with this film loosely based on the 1922 H. P. Lovecraft story Herbert West–Reanimator, and basically er' re-animated the horror genre with a slice of exploitation which took effective looking gore and sexiness to new levels of depravity.

Often imitated, never bettered. A bona-fide classic.

[Frankie Teardrop]

MIDSOMMMAR – Mmm, liked it more than ‘Hereditary’. Once again, a slow build, but this time all that portentousness isn’t blown on a climax full of ‘Insidious’ type thrills. Drippy co-dependent Florence Pugh looks for love inside a traditional rural community of significant anthropological interest. The film’s slowly swelling arc of shadowy weirdness brings us a bit of horrible gore and a pretty crazy group-mating ritual. I dunno, all this radical collectivism and hiding within the guts of bears could be either the essence of arcady or the nadir of fascism, depending how you butter your bread. Is it the anti-‘Wicker Man’, or just a bit like ‘The Wicker Man’? Like ABC’s Martin Fry, “If I knew, I would tell you.”

THE DEAD CENTRE – A man, seemingly back from death via suicide, turns up in a psyche ward. There’s stuff about bad, bad things going on inside him. Can an intrepid psychiatrist sort all this shit out before something vaguely Lovecraftian and formless but nightmarish happens? ‘The Dead Centre’ is quite atmospheric in places and occasionally does manage to capture something of the sense of dread it seems to want to evoke. I couldn’t help but think it played a bit flat sometimes, and that maybe the set-up was a little too conventional for a film of its ambition. But worth a watch for sure, and, in my case, a re-watch.

ANIARA – A space vessel escapes a gone-way-down-hill Earth and heads for a planet where a bunch of people can start again. Something happens, and it gets thrown off course – the occupants are faced with the nightmare of their existence in a cold, icy void. Plus, it’s all a bit like being in a shopping mall until people unravel and start holding ritual sex raves and the like. The source material here has a long and illustrious history in Swedish culture, but ‘Aniara’ feels kind of post-Wheatley’s ‘High Rise’. It’s no less thought provoking for addressing similar themes. Come, stare into the abyss, it’s shit in space.

TERROR TRAIN – Well, I love a good slasher of a certain vintage, and it’s been ages with this one. I mean, I think I’d only really seen it once before, and frankly could remember jack all about it save that it involved a train and, erm… terror? I was really absorbed for the first half hour or so, and the film has indubitable strong points in the form of great gothicy type images of the weirdly Victorian steam train billowing through landscapes of blue and black, and by extension a hard to place vibe of old-meets-new (for the time) horror tropes. Add to this the presence of Jamie Lee Curtis, a plethora of era specific trends, and David Copperfield going around doing gimmicky stuff. On the downside, I’m too impatient these days to go through the inevitable drag without taking points off, and unfortunately ‘Terror Train’ fails to capitalise on the good stuff and ends up doing nothing for long stretches. Still, I’m sentimental and nostalgic enough to constantly go for this kind of thing… just remember to pack a good book if you decide to take this particular journey.

THE HOUSE OF MORTAL SIN – On the other hand, I always thought of THOMS as being one of the more tepid Walker movies, but, seeing it the other day, I was well into it. Dunno why, just that strong sense of the creepiness underlying seventies high-street Britain’s dowdy façade, all these dull, compressed lives breeding poison and despair. Also, I can sort of pick up more these days on ‘film-making sophistication’ if you like, just a sense of how well made or not a film is for a given era, and, like a lot of Walker’s stuff, it’s really slick and thought-out set alongside a lot of other low budget flicks from its milieu. A bad priest gets involved in blackmail and murder – although it sounds like a thriller, narratively and atmospherically it’s a horror film. All highly charged and worthy of its place alongside his other stuff.

CHILD’S PLAY – The remake. ‘Entertaining but a bit overrated’ is how I usually describe the original. This one is better, actually – there’s interesting stuff going on about social issues, I mean it’s not a lecture but it has some kind of political content, and, more to the point, even though Brad Dourif is one of my all-time fave actors broadly, in this case I preferred Hamill’s creepy manifestation of AI gone-wrong. There’s also a bit of gore to temper the slightly too feel-goody type vibe of gritty young uns getting together to stick it to The Man (here, Chucky is kind of the personification of enforced infantilization under consumer capitalism). Good, enjoyable etc.

[Demoncrat]

Love THOMS .... Sharp was ideal casting etc.

Ninja Killer (197?, Lawrence Chan)

There's a world in here. Dance numbers. Jess style sleaze. HIGH KICKING. Like ? Like bugger all It keeps switching genre. RESULT
All hideously dubbed and trimmed natch